of bread between whiles and washing it down with cascades of coffee. Edek was the only one who bothered to listen, and when at last the farmer came to a full stop he said, “I worked on a German farm during the war. But I hated every moment. The people weren’t decent like you.”
The farmer appeared to take this harmless observation as an insult.
“You think I’m decent, do you? Just wait till I’ve wrung a day’s work out of you — you’ll think very differently then. We’ll start right now, soon as you’ve done eating.”
“Let them rest today, Kurt,” said his wife. “They’re all of them worn out.”
The farmer thumped the table with his fist. “I don’t believe in treating people soft,” he said. “Treat ‘em rough and they respect you. Give ‘em the milk of kindness, and it’ll turn sour. No, they’ll start right now. Ruth and Jan shall come with me to the hayfield, and there’ll be no lunch for them if they slack off. Bronia can feed the hens, and Edek—”
“Edek shall stay in the kitchen to help me,” said his wife. “He looks as if a breeze would snuff him out. He shall stay and peel the potatoes for me — that is, if he’d care to.” And the look she gave her husband made it quite clear that she intended to have her own way in this matter.
“Jan, you rascal, don’t imagine I’ll let you forget my shirt,” said the farmer, thumping the table so fiercely that all the crockery jumped.
And, as far as Jan was concerned, the farmer had his way.
Chapter 20
The Burgomaster
Kurt Wolff’s farm was high up in the Bavarian hills, not very far from the Czechoslovakian border. The hills were thickly wooded right to the top, and between them the River Falken came racing and twisting down on its way to join the Danube. A road passed through the field at the foot of the farm — northwards towards Berlin, southwards to the plains beyond the Danube. A few miles downstream was the village of Boding, where each day the Burgomaster received his unwelcome orders from the American troops stationed there. He was a tall, thin man in late middle age, a scientist and Social Democrat, who had lived in retirement from the rise of the Nazis in 1933 till the Americans fished him out some months back. He was shrewd and conscientious in rather a stupid way, but the anti-fraternization laws had soured him. He thought that Germans who were willing to co-operate with the Americans should be treated as friends, not as enemies. As go-between for his own people and the occupying power, he was answerable to both and invariably received more kicks than praise.
In the eyes of the family he was the devil himself. His present instructions were to round up all Polish and Ukrainian refugees in the area and dispatch them home in the American lorries provided. Most of them (and there were a considerable number lurking in the hills and villages) were only too glad to be going home, but there were some who, like the family, had their reasons for not returning. It was up to them to keep clear of him, for orders were orders and must not be disobeyed. So the farmer had offered to keep the family with him till the scare was over. They were only too pleased to accept, for they had quickly found out that, however much thunder there might be in his words, there was little in his heart. And his wife cared for them as if they were her own family.
Jan, whom the farmer always referred to as the “ex-convict”, was particularly happy. He said that life on the farm was every bit as good as his week in prison. This he regarded as an achievement, and Ruth had quite failed to shake his pride in it. He made friends with an elderly and languishing mongrel dog named Ludwig. Until his arrival it had lain dopily in the sun all day, resenting any attention shown to it. To anyone who did not know Jan, the vitality and devotion which he managed to coax out of this half-dead creature was astonishing. It followed him all over the farm
The farmer appeared to take this harmless observation as an insult.
“You think I’m decent, do you? Just wait till I’ve wrung a day’s work out of you — you’ll think very differently then. We’ll start right now, soon as you’ve done eating.”
“Let them rest today, Kurt,” said his wife. “They’re all of them worn out.”
The farmer thumped the table with his fist. “I don’t believe in treating people soft,” he said. “Treat ‘em rough and they respect you. Give ‘em the milk of kindness, and it’ll turn sour. No, they’ll start right now. Ruth and Jan shall come with me to the hayfield, and there’ll be no lunch for them if they slack off. Bronia can feed the hens, and Edek—”
“Edek shall stay in the kitchen to help me,” said his wife. “He looks as if a breeze would snuff him out. He shall stay and peel the potatoes for me — that is, if he’d care to.” And the look she gave her husband made it quite clear that she intended to have her own way in this matter.
“Jan, you rascal, don’t imagine I’ll let you forget my shirt,” said the farmer, thumping the table so fiercely that all the crockery jumped.
And, as far as Jan was concerned, the farmer had his way.
Chapter 20
The Burgomaster
Kurt Wolff’s farm was high up in the Bavarian hills, not very far from the Czechoslovakian border. The hills were thickly wooded right to the top, and between them the River Falken came racing and twisting down on its way to join the Danube. A road passed through the field at the foot of the farm — northwards towards Berlin, southwards to the plains beyond the Danube. A few miles downstream was the village of Boding, where each day the Burgomaster received his unwelcome orders from the American troops stationed there. He was a tall, thin man in late middle age, a scientist and Social Democrat, who had lived in retirement from the rise of the Nazis in 1933 till the Americans fished him out some months back. He was shrewd and conscientious in rather a stupid way, but the anti-fraternization laws had soured him. He thought that Germans who were willing to co-operate with the Americans should be treated as friends, not as enemies. As go-between for his own people and the occupying power, he was answerable to both and invariably received more kicks than praise.
In the eyes of the family he was the devil himself. His present instructions were to round up all Polish and Ukrainian refugees in the area and dispatch them home in the American lorries provided. Most of them (and there were a considerable number lurking in the hills and villages) were only too glad to be going home, but there were some who, like the family, had their reasons for not returning. It was up to them to keep clear of him, for orders were orders and must not be disobeyed. So the farmer had offered to keep the family with him till the scare was over. They were only too pleased to accept, for they had quickly found out that, however much thunder there might be in his words, there was little in his heart. And his wife cared for them as if they were her own family.
Jan, whom the farmer always referred to as the “ex-convict”, was particularly happy. He said that life on the farm was every bit as good as his week in prison. This he regarded as an achievement, and Ruth had quite failed to shake his pride in it. He made friends with an elderly and languishing mongrel dog named Ludwig. Until his arrival it had lain dopily in the sun all day, resenting any attention shown to it. To anyone who did not know Jan, the vitality and devotion which he managed to coax out of this half-dead creature was astonishing. It followed him all over the farm
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